Its all about communication!!!

1. Linguists estimate that 6800 languages exist in the world today.
2. Only 600 languages have speaking populations robust enough to support their survival past the end of the century. Languages need at least 100,000 speakers to survive the ages
3. 66 percent of the world’s children are raised as bilingual speakers.
4. Only 6.3 percent of U.S. residents are bilingual.
5. 1/3 of the world’s languages originated in Africa

• How many words do you think you know now?
Probably around 80,000.
After age 1 you average about 13 words a day.

Phonemes
• The smallest units of sound in a language.
• English has about 44 phonemes.
• Chug has three phonemes, ch, u, g.
How many phonemes does platypus have?
Morphemes
• The smallest unit of meaning
• Can be words like a or
but.
• Can also be parts of words like prefixes or suffixes…”ed” at the end of a word means past tense.
• How many morphemes in the word “cats”

Morpheme: The smallest unit that carries a meaning. It may be a word or part of a word.
For example:
Milk = milk
Pumpkin = pump . kin
Unforgettable = un · for · get · table

Structuring Language
Phonemes Basic sounds (about 40) … ea, sh.
Morphemes
Smallest meaningful units (100,000)
… un, for.
Words
Phrase
Sentence
Meaningful units (290,500) … meat, pumpkin.
Composed of two or more words
(326,000) … meat eater.
Composed of many words (infinite)
… She opened the jewelry box.

Is this the White
House or the House
White?
• The rules of a language.
• Syntax: the order of words in a language.
• In English, adjectives come before nouns, but not in
Spanish/French!

• The set of rules by which we derive meaning in a language.
• Adding ed at the end of words means past tense.

Stages that we learn language…
1. Babbling Stage
2. Holophrastic Stage
(one word stage)
3. Telegraphic Speech
Stage (2-word stage)
• After the telegraphic stage we get overgeneralization .

• B.F. Skinner from the
Behaviorist School
• Baby may imitate a parent.
• If they are reinforced they keep saying the word.
• If they are punished, they stop saying the word.

Chomsky’s Theory
(Inborn Universal Grammar)
• We learn language too quickly for it to be through reinforcement and punishment.
• Inborn universal language acquisition device

• Language Machines - A one year old’s brain is statistically analyzing which syllables most often go together to discern word breaks
• Can we keep it up?
• No, childhood seems to represent a critical period for mastering certain aspects of language
• Once the critical period is over mastering the grammar of another language is very difficult
• When a young brain does not learn language its language-learning capacity never develops.
14

• The idea that language determines the way we think.
• The Hopi tribe has no past tense in their language, so
Whorf says they rarely think of the past.

• 1984
• “To destroy a people, destroy their language.” poet Joy
Harjo
• Many bilinguals report they have a different sense of self depending on which language they speak (Matsumoto,
1994)
– English has a rich vocab for self-focused emotions such as anger
– While Japanese has more words for interpersonal emotions such as sympathy

• Skiers have different words for snow
– Powder, corn, and ice
• Computer Revolution
– I hate that my hardware won’t run the new software
– I’m going to google it
– I’m just going to word process instead of IM’ing my friends or updating Myspace. You see, I’m really depressed that my Ipod won’t log on to Itunes.
• Experience shapes language.

Thinking in Images
To a large extent thinking is language-based.
When alone, we may talk to ourselves. However, we also think in images.
We don’t think in words, when:
1. When we open the hot water tap.
2. When we are riding our bicycle.

Images and Brain
Imagining a physical activity activates the same brain regions as when actually performing the activity.